The present invention relates generally to management of an electronic document, and more particularly to secure sharing of documents in computer networks.
In order to limit the access to confidential information in a document, confidential classification of the document is increased. Conventionally, in order to further reduce the risk, the entire document is simply encrypted and/or a password is set for the document, in addition to merely increasing the confidential classification of the document. When the document is sent out for sharing, often the password is sent through a separate e-mail; however, there are the following problems. (1) The confidential information is included in the document. If the password is compromised, the confidential information is accessed. (2) The access to the entire document is restricted, even though only a portion of the document is confidential information.